Saturday, June 21, 2008

Headlines Saturday 21st June

Tough times.Crumbling under RuddAndrew Bolt It smells of train-wreck. John Lyons examines the astonishing chaos of Kevin Rudd’s office. Some highlights:

Last month, Rudd kept two of the nation’s most senior officials - Australian Defence Force chief Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston and the secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Michael L’Estrange - waiting for hours outside his office…

But there is one word beginning to be used by people in and around the Government: chaos…

Key decisions are not being made. Rudd, for example, has had in his in-tray since February a list of candidates to replace Richard Alston as high commissioner to London. He cannot decide between three career diplomats - John McCarthy, David Ritchie and John Dauth - and two of his own thoughts for the position, political figures Kim Beazley and Stephen Loosley…

(O)n Mr Rudd’s trip to the US, Europe and Asia ... one of the men on the trip - ABC political editor Chris Uhlmann - told (28-year-old Lachlan) Harris, Rudd’s senior media adviser, that he had an emerging problem with several female reporters. When Uhlmann told him many women felt he was rude, Harris jokingly responded: “I’m rude to everybody."…

(O)ne of Labor’s better performers, Tony Burke, now Agriculture Minister, ... developed laryngitis, and was unable to speak. He received a call from Harris wanting him to do interviews, but Burke told him he was too sick and barely had a voice. Harris was furious and abused Burke. Senior Labor strategists were stunned that Harris felt he could dress down a leading frontbencher, a key figure in the NSW Labor Party who was instrumental in delivering Rudd the numbers to defeat Beazley for the leadership…

A senior Labor figure who has until now been a strong Rudd supporter predicted the public service would begin leaking against Rudd because of his treatment of them…

Insiders say that barely a day seems to go by when the Prime Minister’s office is not derailed by an ultra-sensitive leader who abandons his program at a whim.===Neal’s executioner clears her throatAndrew BoltBelinda Neal was finished already, but this will hurry on the execution, I suspect:

BELINDA NEAL’S future in the Labor Party is in jeopardy because of explosive allegations to be aired by a former employee about the Iguanas affair.

Melissa Batten, who quit the federal MP’s staff last week, citing stress, is expected to make damaging claims about Ms Neal in an interview with Channel Nine’s A Current Affair on Monday night. In on-air promotions Ms Batten has been called the “woman who will bring down Belinda Neal”.===Born to suffer for his raceAndrew Bolt Canada has now followed Australia is apologising to the “stolen generations”. But, like Australia, it seems the sorry is just condemning some Aboriginal children today to die:

Last month, I wrote about Gage Guimond, a two-year-old Winnipeg child abandoned by his mother before his first birthday. As I noted, child services found a safe foster family for Gage. But there was a problem—a racial problem: The foster family was Metis, while Gage’s mother was a member of the Sagkeeng First Nation. Like virtually all aboriginal-run child-services outfits, this one had a mandate to place children in homes that are “culturally”—which is to say, racially—“appropriate.”===Not theirs to decideAndrew Bolt Agree completely:

AN expert in the laws of voluntary euthanasia says a jury reached a predictable and appropriate decision when it convicted two elderly women of manslaughter for what they claimed was the mercy killing of an Alzheimer’s sufferer. - I am against Euthanasia. I understand that mercy killing happens, but I think it is not something that we need celebrate. I am concerned that a bad euthanasia law will legalize murder, where the victim did not wish euthanasia, but their voice is lost because of the law. Because of the celebration of the death of this dementia sufferer, we are not in a position to know anything for sure. Euthanasia often seems to kill the healthy, lonely and sad, not the terminally ill.- ed.===Work or moveAndrew Bolt It’s ludicrous that there should even be a debate about this:

THE taskforce running the radical Northern Territory Aboriginal intervention has told the Rudd Government some Aboriginal communities may not be viable and only those that pass a viability test should get access to services such as schools and health clinics.

I hope that the definition of “viable”, when some future government finally agrees to the inevitable and necessary, is simply the presence of real jobs. Towns of beggars, whether white or black, will never, never be healthy. especially for the children. -I cannot bring myself to agree completely with Bolt on this. There are many issues ignored beyond the 'they get our money they should live where we say' argument. The ultimate decision should not be made until the community is fit to make such a decision. That won't happen while locals are hooked on drugs and alcohol and are raising their children in abusive households. The main issues have to be addressed, possibly at great cost, before the decision to go is made. -ed.===Getting ready for IranAndrew Bolt Yes, but I think it will be the US that eventually takes on the burden, should action be necessary, to mute the reaction:

Israel carried out a major military exercise earlier this month that American officials say appeared to be a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.===Leaving the green zoneAndrew Bolt Excellent news - betting their bodies that Iraq is safer than the media have so long portrayed it:

Iraq’s Parliament will relocate just outside Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone compound in September for the first time since the 2003 US-led invasion, a sign security is improving, the country’s first deputy speaker said.===Another IPCC dissenter speaks outAndrew Bolt Kiminori Itoh, environmental metrologist with Yokohama National University, worked on the IPCC’s latest report as an expert reviewer. He’s now published in Japan, Lies and Traps in the Global Warming Affairs, which he says concludes:

The global temperature will not increase rapidly if any. There is sufficient time to think about future energy and social systems. The climate system is more robust than conventionally claimed. For instance, the Gulf Stream will not stop by fresh water inflow. There are many factors to cause the climate changes particularly in regional and local scales. Considering only greenhouse gases is nonsense and harmful.===Shaken by another warming scareAndrew Bolt America’s CBS news is as keen as any news outfit to flog a new global warming scare story - like this one:

Seismic Activity 5 Times More Energetic Than 20 Years Ago Because Of Global Warming

According to CBS, a new study by Australian scientist Dr. Tom Chalko, MSc, PhD, and published in the NU Journal of Discovery, had just found a new reason to believe global warming threatened us with doom: The research proves that destructive ability of earthquakes on Earth increases alarmingly fast and that this trend is set to continue, unless the problem of ‘global warming’ is comprehensively and urgently addressed.

Of course, it takes a special kind of journalist - like the ones who using write on the environment - to believe warming will shake the world to pieces. And when Marc Shephard dug deeper, he found CBS was knee-deep in dung. The study turns out to be as preposterous as its author:

Chalko also runs a website for followers of the Thiaoouba Prophecy, which preaches that advanced beings from the planet Thiaoouba abduct one Earthling every century and impart unto the chosen-one the true meaning of life.

Read on. And learn that a global warming scare sells faster than global warming facts.===Dick Smith says he'll 'do a Kerry' on taxDICK Smith has threatened to 'do a Kerry Packer' and become a massive tax minimiser after the tax office said he'd be scrutinised. -it appears as if the tax office are targeting a generous wealthy Australian for having worked with the Liberal Party. -ed.===Coalition rising in QueenslandAndrew Bolt Labor starts to sink- and fast- in Queensland:

PREMIER Anna Bligh has sailed her Labor team into rough seas - with a new opinion poll showing support for the State Government has sunk significantly…

Angst over an array of issues, particularly roads and public transport, has convinced many Queenslanders to abandon"Labor on the eve of the party’s milestone of being a decade in power. Voters appear willing to back the Lawrence Springborg-led alternative in the belief the looming merger of the Nationals and Liberals will make them more credible…

On a two-party preferred basis, Labor leads the Coalition 52 per cent to 48 compared to 61 per cent to 39 four months ago.

Translate

Subscribe To

Followers

Translator

About Me

I have an m-audio mobile pre amp fed by the audiotechnica 2041sp condensor mic pack. Prior to 15/4/06, I'd used a Shure sm-58 that required a nuclear blast to register a sound or the internal mic of my aged imac, which has a penchance to recording my breathing. I also used a Griffin itrip, until the community convinced me it was not hiding my talent as well as the other mics.

I am a Writer and an occasional Math Teacher (Sir, what's the occasion?). I like to sing, having no instrumental talent (cannot even clap in time, and yes, I'm aware singing badly IS obnoxious).

I have performed the finale to Les Miserables before an audience of 500. I have also sung before a similar audience (students, parents) renditions of 'I Will' (Beatles), 'Mr Cairo' (Jon Vangelis) and 'I am Australian' (Seekers). Now I seek another profession because the audience hates me ..